By Charmayne Allison, ABC
Staff says the bears posed no threat to the public at any point. Photo: 123RF
Two young bears who escaped from their enclosure and ate a "week's worth of honey" have been safely secured at a British wildlife park.
European brown bears Mish and Lucy, both five, fled their enclosure at Wildwood Devon on Monday afternoon, local time.
They then made a beeline to a staff-only food storage area, where they helped themselves to a "selection of snacks", including honey.
"As a precaution, all visitors on site were promptly escorted to a secure building," the park said in a post on social media.
Staff said the bears posed no threat to the public at any point.
Bears returned to enclosure
Mish and Lucy were safely returned to their enclosure by the "expert keeper team within the hour", the park reported on its Instagram site.
"Our experienced keeping team acted immediately, following established safety protocols, and successfully used recall training to encourage both bears back into their enclosure without the need for any intervention.
"The bears were continuously monitored both on the ground and via CCTV until they calmly returned to their enclosure and fell asleep."
The park was temporarily closed and police were called, with an investigation launched into the incident.
In a social media post on Tuesday, local time, Wildwood Devon confirmed the bears' escape was the result of an "operational error".
Bears escape an isolated incident
The park said this was an isolated incident.
"We are conducting a full internal investigation to understand exactly how it happened and to ensure robust measures are in place to prevent a re-occurrence," the park said.
"While the structural integrity of the bear enclosure remains uncompromised, we take any operational lapse extremely seriously.
"We remain fully committed to the highest standards of animal care, visitor safety, and transparency."
Mish and Lucy have lived at Wildwood since 2021, when they were discovered abandoned on the side of a mountain in Albania.
The park said rescuers had worked to rehabilitate the pair and re-establish them in the wild, but these attempts failed.
The brother and sister bears now live in a half-hectare enclosure where they roam around and climb trees.
Brown bear numbers greatly reduced
Brown bears were once native to much of Asia, northern Africa, Europe and North America.
However, today, numbers have become greatly reduced, even becoming extinct in some areas.
Wildwood said poaching for gall bladders and paws, as well as canned hunting, are big problems for most European brown bears.
The park said habitat loss, persecution and accidental mortality were also major threats.
- ABC
